For Whom the Bell Tolls
Updated: Aug 8
I’ve read Ernest Hemingway just once before, his novel The Old Man and the Sea, when I was (I think) a freshman in high school. After 30-plus years, I don’t have particularly strong feelings about it (unlike, say, The Great Gatsby, which I loathed, or To Kill a Mockingbird, which I loved). So, For Whom the Bell Tolls didn’t make my reading list because I was a huge Hemingway fan. No, it made the list because in my early days on Goodreads I hit up Modern Library’s “100 Best Novels” and added a bunch of them to my list. This was in 2009. Looking at the list today, either For Whom the Bell Tolls has been dropped since then, or I added it by mistake in lieu of The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms, which are on the list. Considering my impression of this book, maybe I’d have been better off with one of the others. Considering my impression of this book, I’m not sure I’m inclined to give the others a chance.
For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer and demolitions expert fighting with a band of Republican guerillas against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Jordan has been assigned to blow up a bridge, and, over the course of four days, we learn much about him, his background, his mission, the compatriots he’s working with, the young woman he falls in love with, as well as some of the politics, machinations, and personalities behind the war itself. At nearly five hundred pages, it’s difficult to call the story “taut,” but with action and dialog the primary drivers, and with little in the way of exposition, or at least exposition of any extended length, it mostly feels that way.
At its best, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a thrilling, page-turning (anti-)war novel full of sex, violence, and foul language, although the latter is more implied than explicit. At its worst, it suffers from three things. First, a heavier editorial hand would have done wonders. There are too many passages that go on for too long with too little to show for it, like a reality TV show broadcasting everything it captures regardless of whether it's interesting, revelatory, or propels the narrative. Second, the dialogue reads like poorly translated Spanish. The words may be technically correct but come across as awkward, stilted, and oddly archaic (e.g., the use of “thee” and “thou” instead of “you” and “your(s)”). Third, it is clearly the product of a more puritanical time. That is, Hemingway would have his characters curse and swear and carry on as they like, but, of course, the novel never would have been published without a great deal of self-censorship. So, we get words like “obscenity” and “unprintable” and “muck” in phrases like, “I obscenity in the milk of thy tiredness,” “The gypsy did not move but said something unprintable,” and “Go muck yourself.” Such choices may have been born out of necessity, but, if they weren’t considered silly at the time, they certainly seem so now.
In the end, For Whom the Bell Tolls was good enough to finish but not good enough to recommend. And, I’m inclined to say, not good enough for me to pick up another Hemingway anytime soon—or ever. As I sit here pondering that notion, however, I find myself increasingly curious about those other novels. Curiosity can be a dangerous thing, and, in this case, I have serious doubts about whether the return would be worth the investment.
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